Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

79 was granted a baronetcy taking the title of Cradock in the Province of the Cape of Good Hope in the Union of South Africa. He chose the motto for his coat of arms of Virtue is My Fortress. Following his death the baronetcy was inherited by his first son Sir Derrick Bailey, who became a wartime bomber pilot and in 1949 a cricketer with Gloucestershire. He was captain of the county side in 1951 and 1952. When Derrick Bailey died in 2009 the baronetcy passed to his eldest son, John, born in 1947. Sport was ameans by which, in Abe Bailey’s eyes, South Africa could become recognised as a dominant and powerful resource within the imperial circuit. As he was a cricketer of some ability, it was through cricket that he sought to meet influential people and to create influence for himself. He himself played three first-class matches, two being in the Currie Cup for the Transvaal, and in younger days he had played in two minor matches for Johannesburg and then the Transvaal against W.W.Read’s XI of 1892. He would become captain and later president of the famous Wanderers Club in Johannesburg : The Wanderers Club, founded in 1888, was only ever a strong club side but their Old Wanderers Ground hosted first-class cricket from 1891 to 1946, when it was requisitioned for the extension of Johannesburg railway station. For the next ten years cricket was played at nearby Ellis Park, the city’s premier rugby ground, until the present New Wanderers Stadium was opened in 1956. Abe Bailey formally engaged Frank Mitchell as a secretary, a job Johannesburg 1901 - 1904 Abe Bailey, like Hawke before him, was to become a mentor of Frank Mitchell, but also an employer.  Bailey was one of the most powerful men in South Africa.